When Religion Becomes a Weapon: How Syria’s Ministry of Awqaf Sanctifies War

In a deeply troubling development, Syria’s Ministry of Awqaf has issued an official directive to mosque preachers across the country, framing military attacks against Kurds in western Kurdistan (Rojava) as religious “victories” or futuhat. The circular, signed by Minister of Awqaf Dr. Mohammad Abu al-Khair Shukri and dated 18 January 2026, calls on imams to recite qunut prayers during all five daily obligatory prayers and to proclaim takbir—as an expression of joy over these so-called victories.

This is not merely a religious statement. It is a political act cloaked in theological language—one that instrumentalizes Islam to legitimize violence against a specific ethnic community. By mobilizing mosques and religious rituals to celebrate military operations against Kurdish civilians, the Syrian state crosses a dangerous threshold: transforming faith into a mechanism of dehumanization.

The choice of language is especially alarming. The term futuhat has a specific historical and jurisprudential meaning in Islamic tradition, referring to wars waged against non-believers. Applying this concept to military actions against Kurdish citizens—who are neither foreign invaders nor religious adversaries—amounts to a symbolic exclusion of Kurds from the moral and civic boundaries of the state.

For Kurds, this rhetoric is not abstract. It evokes one of the darkest chapters of modern Middle Eastern history. In 1987–1988, Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime launched the Anfal campaign against the Kurdish population of Iraq—an operation framed in religious language and culminating in genocide. More than 182,000 Kurdish civilians were disappeared, executed, or buried alive; thousands of villages were erased. Earlier, in August 1979, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a jihad decree against Kurds, declaring their killing religiously permissible. The pattern is painfully familiar: when the state sacralizes violence, mass atrocity follows.

Today, echoes of that history are unmistakable in northern Syria. When a government, through its religious institutions, officially labels attacks on its own population as “divine victories,” it sends a clear message: religion is being repurposed as a shield for ethnic repression. This is not faith—it is ideology weaponized.

For international audiences, the scale of this moral collapse may be difficult to grasp. Yet the reality is stark. Across parts of the Middle East, religion has been hollowed out by authoritarian power. God is invoked not to protect life, dignity, or justice, but to sanctify war and silence dissent. When dictators seek legitimacy at the pulpit, mosques become extensions of the battlefield.

In such moments, one is forced to confront an unsettling conclusion: in this political geography, the God of mercy and justice has been replaced by a manufactured deity—one designed to serve the survival of regimes, not the conscience of humanity.